


Empyrean Substance

by ultramarineheart



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Love, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:23:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultramarineheart/pseuds/ultramarineheart
Summary: Even the realm of dreams has rules. Shiro finds out when he meets Lance in a dream after a traumatic event. Lance helps him navigate the dream world and Shiro finds out he's not the first one Lance has helped. When Lance's life is threatened, his friends band together to help him.When you die in a dream, you only die in the dream. It's a cardinal rule.





	Empyrean Substance

The aroma of coffee left his senses as Shiro exited the coffee shop. The magic of the warm brew was secure in a to-go cup so he wouldn’t miss it for too long. High above the skyscrapers of New York, gray clouds rolled over the sunlight and released cold droplets from their heaviness.

He felt it on his nose first and then his forehead. He ran his hand through his black hair to shake out any more evidence of rain. He walked quickly down the sidewalk, adding a light jog to his stride. His office wasn’t too far from the coffee shop and it was one of his daily indulgences, his escape from his workload.

Shirogane Sleep Industries was a tall, black tower with jade green accents on every level in an attempt at a gothic design. When he was younger, it looked like a black tower oozing green slime. Shiro would whine about it to his parents when they brought him to headquarters. His mother was a homemaker, but his father started the company and would often come home extremely tired. He was convinced that a green slime monster was sucking away his father’s time and energy so much so that he had to research how to sleep properly.

Now that he was older the building still looked the same to him, but he had his bad eyesight to blame for that. It wasn’t so bad he needed to have his glasses on all the time, but it was no longer perfect. Not that his glasses would have helped at the moment. The rain was picking up and he was close to approaching the side of the building when a pair of headlights flashed in his periphery and before he could move away, he felt a car slam into his body. He fell back and scrambled to his knees as he heard the engine growl like a hungry lion. He tried to get up, but he wasn’t fast enough and the car hit him a second time. He felt a piercing blow to his right arm, the pain felt like it was being crushed and pulled away at the same time. His skin was being pulled from the bicep, away from his body. Shiro closed his eyes and let darkness consume him.

* * *

 

“Hey, dude, wake up! You’re seriously hurt, you need to stay awake!”

Shiro could barely make out the words, but the voice was as gentle as it was urgent. The cold, clammy hand smacking his cheek, however, was annoying. He opened his eyes and stared upwards at the blur before him.

“Good. Stay with me.”

His focus on the lips that said those words, then the soft skin, and finally deep blue eyes. The stranger was a young man whose head was framed by the stars twinkling in the night sky above them. Shiro’s head was rested on his lap.

He took a deep breath and hoisted himself up with his left arm, feeling the grass under his fingertips.

“Easy, big guy. I think you’re really hurt.”

“What?” Shiro asked.

The stranger rested his arms against Shiro’s back to keep him from falling toward the right side. What was wrong with his arm? He glanced to where his wrist should be and found a trail of black smoke coming from his bicep and he screamed, feeling a pain from which he could not remember the origin.

“No! No! Look at me! Only look at me!” The stranger placed his hands on either side of Shiro’s cheeks and pressed their foreheads together, making sure Shiro couldn’t look away. Shiro struggled against him and sobbed, but the young man remained still until Shiro quieted, the pain slipped away and all that was between them was a warm energy that manifested in tiny purple lights like stardust. “You’re going to be fine. I promise. You’re going to be-“

Then the pain returned, followed by a bright, new light and the stranger and his voice began to disappear replaced by doctors and nurses in scrubs.

“Mr. Shirogane, you’re awake. Try not to panic; you’re going to be just fine.“

* * *

 

Lance grasped at the grass in front of him, pulling it up from the dirt as if the stranger would reappear from the roots. What was left of the black smoke was taken up with the breeze. Did he die?

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. The dirt on his hands vanished. No, that’s not how people die in the dream realm. No loved one was here to receive him and walk him through the portal to the other side. Perhaps he woke up.

And just in time.

The stars melted from the sky rained large drops that threatened to swallow him up and drown him all at once. He pulled at the grass viciously until all that was left in front of him was a small patch of dirt. Then he dug and dug until his fingers felt raw and there was a large enough hole for his body to stand in. Water filled it easily enough.

He clutched the edge of the hole, held his breath out of habit, and launched himself into his makeshift portal head first.

Perhaps he’ll see the stranger again, but for now, Lance had to figure out where the portal led him. He looked like he was in a dark hole, but the light of the moon lit the edge of the hole revealing a lining of stone. He felt the darkness beside him and hoisted his legs up the sides of the hole and started to shimmy upwards. When he reached the top he realized that portal had taken him to the bottom of a well.

“The sacrifice is here!” A voice shouted. Great, another demon summoning dream. Lance felt two people behind him grab his arms and pull him out. He struggled against them to no avail and soon he found himself tied to a slab of rock with a group of six people surrounding him.

“Oh hell no! I’m not going out like this!” He screamed and thrashed against the rock. His eyes widened when someone stood above him with a spear in their hands and then lowered it quickly. He felt it poke his abdomen just as a man in orange kicked his assailant away.

“Matt! Oh, thank god!” Lance let out a breath of relief and wiggled his wrists. While Matt fought off the demon summoners with a bo staff, Lance could concentrate on freeing himself, willing the ropes to loosen as he rubbed his ankles and wrists against them. When he was free, Matt grabbed him by the arm an ran into the woods. Lance followed Matt as quickly as his long legs could carry him.

“Matt, where are we going? How did you get here?”

“Don’t know, I came out of the woods and the portal closed. The time they stay open keeps getting shorter. Probably because we’re tired. At least we won’t fall off a cli－” Lance watched Matt fall off a side of a cliff that materialized as he spoke. His hand was wrapped hard around Lance’s wrist and he pulled their connection. Lance tried to halt and pull Matt back only to lose his balance and fall off the cliff as well.

“Fuck you, Matt Holt!” Lance’s voice rang through the darkness followed by Matt’s howl of laughter.

* * *

 

“When you die in a dream, you only die in a dream.” Matt murmured to himself in between gulps of air after his body jolted awake. The light in his room came on and he squinted in response. He assumed he must have screamed in his sleep again and woke his little sister up.

“Matt, something happened to Shiro. His family is asking for us to help him.” His sister’s voice was cold and hesitant. Hearing about Shiro’s family, Matt thought perhaps they wanted to run another sleep study on him despite the fact that it didn’t help. Then it registered in his mind that something happened to Shiro.

“What happened?” He sat up and looked at his sister for the first time. Her brown hair barely covered her red, puffy eyes. “Pidge? Katie? What happened?”

“Someone ran into him with their car. And when he tried to get up they hit him again.” She stopped took a sharp inhale, tears flowing from her eyes. “Dad says he might lose his arm.”

**Author's Note:**

> So it says graphic violence because honestly, I don't know what every individual's threshold is. Also, the characters will die several times in several ways, but they will not die in their real lives except possibly the villain at the end.


End file.
